On March 11 2010, the new Tokyo-Ibaraki Airport (IBR) opened. The first flight to arrive was an Asiana Airlines‘ Airbus A321 from Incheon International Airport in South Korea. This was the first and the last flight for that day.

Let us examine this case study from the very “beginning”. The airfield was first developed in 1937, under the orders of Emperor Hirohito. and for the next several decades served as a Japanese Air Force base. Several years after the start of the 21st century the local government decided to convert the military installation into a civil airport.

According to different sources the cost of the construction project was somewhere between $220 and $230 million. Also, according to multiple publications, the project was completed on time and on budget with all the requested features delivered. Therefore one could come to a conclusion that from a project management point of view this project was a complete success.

However, at the time of the project inception both of the two major Japanese airlines – All Nippon Airways and Japanese Airlines – notified the local government that they did not intend to use the airport after its completion. These airlines’ decision implied that 90% of the air traffic in Japan would be absent from the airport.

Another issue that was known right from the beginning of the venture is the problematic location of the airport. It was located 96 miles (155km) from the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. Another problem at the time the airport opened was there were no plans to offer any type of public transportation from or to the airport. It was estimated that the passengers trying to get to the center of Tokyo would have to spend more than three and a half hours to reach their intended destination.

Furthermore, the facilities at Ibaraki Airport were minimal. While the provincial government marketed the airport as a low cost airline hub, the facilities at the airport were totally insufficient to meet the needed requirements.

Company assets were in dozens of billions of dollars in 2012 whereas its income was measured in billions of dollars. Despite an overall strong position of the organization, the executives of the company were somewhat concerned with a slow growth in revenues (4-8% per year) and net income (1-3% per year). Consequently they felt that the company was been falling behind the competition and, in the long-term, in danger of losing the leading position in the pharmaceutical industry.

The case study below is focusing on the organizational R&D projects – both pharmaceutical and diagnostics – while ignoring the maintenance and stay in business ventures.

Strategy

Just like in the previous example the company executives have developed a very clear unequivocal strategy void of any ambiguous goals. The strategy consisted of four pillars:

No OTC products – the company decided to avoid the generic drug market altogether and focus on the prescription drugs only due to IP protection and higher profit margins.

Five research areas – the company decided to focus its R&D efforts on five key pharma field including cardiology, cancer, infectious diseases, diabetes and neuroscience.

Focus on personal healthcare - attending to the physical needs of people who are disabled or otherwise unable to take care of themselves

Personalized drugs - drugs that can customized exactly to the needs of a particular patient, including the exact dosage and combination with other medications.

Scoring Model

The portfolio committee decided to employ the following variable in the construction of their scoring model:

This case study focuses on a Western European subsidiary of a large multinational banking and financial services corporation. While the subsidiary operates only in a medium-size European country, the parent organization is present in dozens of countries and serves millions of customers.

The subsidiary in question has managed to survive the financial crisis relatively unscathed, but still had certain performance issues including stagnant income numbers and even a slight dip in 2012.

As a result of these issues the senior management decided to analyze and prioritize their projects as well as to better align them with the company strategy for the next three to five years.

Strategy

Considering its previous challenges the executive management team developed the following strategy:

50% of the future “simple” sales should be offered online in order to cut operating costs

100% of future simple services should be offered online, again, in order to cut the operating costs

All of the products and services offered should be described using “easy language” in order to improve transparency and understanding

All of the products and services introduced by the global headquarters should undergo product nationalization in order for them to conform to local laws and standards

The bank wants to become a top employer in the country

The Scoring Model

The senior management team has agreed on the following scoring model for the company project proposals (see also Table 1):

Introduction

Close to the very end of the last year Thinktank Consulting has completed a very exciting project that has been two years in the making. We have successfully finished a very large project and portfolio management implementation initiative at one of the leading European telecom providers.

The company has experienced a significant growth in the number and size of their projects. Currently a typical project portfolio at the organization consists of approximately fifty ongoing large endeavours. As a result of the above-mentioned developments the company started experiencing problems in the areas of resource planning, allocation and management. Furthermore, there are certain issues with proper planning of the projects, adequate project control and performance reporting.

Company management has contacted Thinktank Consulting Inc. to assist them with an independent, unbiased assessment of the situation and provide its expertise in addressing their problems.

Introduction

A president of one of the North American universities e-mailed me to chat about the issues they were having and see if a potential solution can be found for them. The university was located in one of the smaller towns near US-Canada border and had approximately 15,000 on campus students.

The university management has undertaken a significant expansion of their services including a massive distance education portal, as well as opening of the Law and Medical faculties. The president also mentioned that one of the most important goals of the university was to attract more Canadian, American and international students to their university as the competition was getting very stiff due to their proximity to the border and a number of both American and Canadian schools located nearby.

Problems and Challenges

Among the issues mentioned by the president and later confirmed by all other executives of the university were:

We are experiencing stiff competition from Canadian and US universities. We need innovative and effective projects to fight this battle. How do we identify such opportunities?

Value of our projects is low. We have no way of measuring, but the proverbial “gut feel” tells us that we are not getting our money’s worth. Is there a way to remedy this situation?

We have too many projects in our pipeline since we say “yes” to every initiative. How do we cut unattractive ideas?

Our resource pool is fixed, but the number of projects is growing and they are getting more complex. How do we prioritize them and address the resourcing constraint?

Constraints

As always there were several external and internal constraints limiting our ability to find quick nd efficient solutions to the organization’s problems: